Emma Thompson's naked scene in this film was "probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do," she said.
"[Director] Sophie [Hyde], Daryl [McCormack], and I rehearsed totally nude and talked about our bodies, talked about our relationship with our bodies, drew them, talked over the things that we find difficult about, factors we like about them, described one particular another's bodies," Emma reported for the duration of a Cinema Café panel at the Sundance Film Festival, where the motion picture premiered.
The movie was filmed in order, so the leading actors would progress with their characters.
The film was shot within 19 days, with an average of 12 pages per day.
Daryl McCormack and Emma Thompson did not require an intimacy coordinator to orchestrate their sex scenes. "We just thought if we really focus on getting to know one another and being comfortable with one another, that we'll be able to do all the work ourselves," McCormack explains, describing what sounds like an intense, method-acting approach.
"We would walk to set together, we would walk home together. We would eat together, run the lines for the next day together, go to sleep and then repeat. So, for like a good four weeks we were just living in each other's pockets and we became so close. We are very close now."
Actor Daryl McCormack, who plays Leo Grande, was sent the script. "Before I'd even read the script or
understood it was a two-hander, I was excited by the idea of working with Emma [Thompson],"
explained McCormack. "Once I started reading, I couldn't believe this was something I
might be considered for. I fell in love with the character of Leo and what he represented,
what seeing a young man like him on screen could mean and the chance to embody that.
And then to see how these two people in one room can really change each other's lives
through intimacy."